WITH the T36 800m back on the agenda for next year’s Paralympic Games, Dorchester’s Paul Blake firmly believes he is in good enough shape to break the world record.

Russia’s Evgenii Shvetcov currently holds the class record of 2:05.05mins, set at the 2012 IPC European Championships in the Nertherlands.

But after a couple of competitive runs over the distance following a two-year break from the event, 25-year-old Blake is confident of dipping below Shvetcov’s time.

Blake was two-tenths of a second off his own personal best when running in Exeter on Tuesday and his recent 800m performances have put him at the top of the world rankings.

The signs bode well for October’s World Championships in Doha when Blake is likely to come face-to-face with another Russian, Artem Arefyev, the man he beat to the world title in 2013.

“The 800m is going really well at the moment,” he told Echosport. “Conditions in Exeter on Tuesday were terrible so I think I can run even quicker than I did.

“Training has been going well since they decided to put the 800m back in the Paralympics, I feel stronger than I have been before.

“I want to go quite a bit quicker than I have been and I think I’m capable of breaking the world record, it’s just a case of doing it when it matters.

“I’ve run really well in training and doing all the times I need, but it’s about doing those in competition.”

As well as the 800m, Blake will be going for gold in Doha over one lap, though at the moment he sits behind Shvetcov in the world rankings.

Shvetcov’s best time of the year so far is around a second better than Blake, the silver and bronze medallist from London 2012.

Blake has the ‘A’ standard for both distances ahead of the final selection for the World Championships, which is set to take place in mid-September.